Mandela Day should remind us to strive for ethical governance
We need more of his zeal for fairness, honour, equality
A LETTER writer in one of our daily papers makes the suggestion that the word “celebration” in the sense that we use it to mark landmark events, like Mandela Day, ought to be recalibrated because they have become “wishy-washy” events, out of sync with present realities.
He points out, for example, the fact that Mandela languished in a prison far from family and friends on a distant island for the good of all South Africa hardly helps the youth of today to obtain simple things like employment.
One, of course, can add to that a plethora of ills we endure daily.
He does not, however, venture an alternative to “celebration”.
Oddly, the reference to “present realities” got me thinking about the disgraceful conduct of the EFF preceding the delivery of Pravin Gordhan’s Budget speech and what it means in Mandela language to fight fair, a concept apparently foreign to the EFF.
In a letter smuggled out of Robben Island by Mac Maharaj in 1977, addressed to the legal firm of which I was a partner, Mandela set out in great detail the abuses he suffered at the hands of his gaolers.
Transcribed from the minutest of handwriting, the typed version runs into something like nine pages and is reproduced in the book Nelson Mandela: Conversations with Myself.
Like most South Africans, the EFF’s antics left me dismayed and in despair.
The sanctity of Parliament as an institution for the exchange of ideas and debate was defiled in a most heinous way.
It left me wondering what Mandela would have had to say had he been faced with a similar display of thuggery.
It took me back to the question posed by the letter writer in search of the answer to the question whether the values espoused by Mandela are relevant today.
They are. At least one such value resonates with me and is captured in typical Mandela style in a 1977 letter addressed to the commanding officer of Robben Island Prison, in which he stated:
“I detest white supremacy and will fight it with every weapon in my hands. But even when the clash between you and me has taken the most extreme form, I should like us to fight over principle and ideas and without personal hatred, so that at the end of the battle, whatever the result might be, I can shake hands proudly with you, because I feel I have fought an upright and worthy opponent who has observed the whole code of honour and decency. But when your subordinates continue to use foul methods, then a sense of real bitterness and contempt becomes irresistible.”
That bitterness and contempt are well expressed by Gordhan when, in response to the confrontation, he is reported to have said: “We survived apartheid. We will survive this Fascist populism.”
The Daily Maverick rightly observes that we should all stand firm to ensure that a populist agenda should not be allowed to overshadow the recovery of South Africa from the excesses and pillaging to which we have been victims.
When in the late ’80s and early ’90s, it became evident that the ANC and Madiba, in particular, were set to occupy centre stage in the new South Africa, many South Africans of all colours and political persuasions switched allegiance to be part of the change, some genuine, others opportunistic.
Madiba reached out to whoever reached out to him.
For this, some to this very day, accuse him of selling out to white monopoly capital.
It was in the context of his much quoted “If there are dreams about a beautiful South Africa, there are also roads that lead to their goal. Two of these roads could be named Goodness and Forgiveness”, that I had an exchange with him on January 18, 1994, at what was then Shell House.
When present together some members of the Natal Indian Congress/ Transvaal Indian Congress executive, planning for the forthcoming elections, I raised with him my unhappiness about the willy-nilly accepting collaborators with the apartheid regime into ANC membership.
His response to me was a curt: let bygones be bygones, we need to move on.
The history of a particular welcoming meeting of two such persons is well documented and received much publicity at the time.
Whether this all-embracing stance, without attempting to identify the genuine from the opportunistic is responsible for what some go so far as to label us now as a “failed state”, only time will tell.
But his stance on forgiveness and goodness is no different from that of Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King and other greats of contemporary history.
The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong (Mahatma Gandhi)
Parallels have been drawn between Mandela and Gandhi.
Perhaps it is for that reason that Mandela was able to find common ground with a number of South Africans of Indian descent, particularly its leadership, and the names that come to mind are the likes of Ismail and Fatima Meer, JN Singh, Yusuf and Amina Cachalia, the Pahads, Chota Motala, Yusuf Dadoo, Monty Naicker, the illustrious Amma Naidoo family and a host of others, some of whom can be identified by perusing the 1956 Treason Trial list.
During Mandela’s clandestine visit to Natal in the early 1960s, he was hosted in secrecy at great risk by the likes of the Bodasinghs, the Singhs and Hurbans families, among others, up to the time of his arrest in Howick.
He enjoyed a special relationship with the Indian community and it might well be the reason why he was so conciliatory towards those who sought solutions through government-created structures rather than through the recognised liberation movements of the time.
Whether the word “celebration” in relation to Mandela Day should be recalibrated or not, is neither here nor there. Point taken.
But that we should pay homage to our own internationally recognised icon is a no-brainer.
The state of disarray in governance is not of his making but a useful reminder that it falls on each and every one of us as members of civil society to strive for a return to ethical government and the shared optimism of the Mandela era.
Mandela Day shouldn’t be celebrated as a testament to his personal sacrifice, as many others did the same, but rather of his dedication to fairness, honour and equality. That’s what makes him a remarkable man, and that is what we need to see more of both in Parliament and in our everyday lives.